V-Day

After 10 years together, this is what Valentine's Day becomes...I didn't get home from work until nearly 7 p.m., at which point my wife was trying to help Marty do his homework...which he didn't want to do...while Casey ran around like a maniac. We exchanged cards while trying to fix dinner and the kids argued over which box of the exact same Valentine's candy was whose.

Then we had a dinner so memorable that I couldn't actually tell you what it was...but I can tell you that Marty spent most of dinner under the table and Casey sang a song about "poop."

Then the kids took their showers, which meant that we were treated to Casey's "pee-pee" dance for the 1,000 or so time and Marty got water all over the floor because he didn't remember that he needed to go to the bathroom until he was in the shower.

When the boys finally went to bed, Amy immediately slipped into something a little more comfortable...some flannel pajamas. She had a head cold and wanted to go to bed early.
We did watch some TV together while she flossed her teeth, which was nice.

Then she went to bed, texting me to bring up an extra blanket for her when I went to bed.

What did I do? Well, I did a chunk of paperwork while half watching television until I fell asleep.

I read a statistic that said the feeling of being "in love"lasts for an average of two years...but in my case, I can't imagine the euphoria ever ending.

Oh, and in keeping with the romantic theme...it dawned on me over the weekend that once upon a time I used to like under wire bras for the more traditionally obvious male reasons. Now, I like them because they're easy to identify when you're taking clothes out of the washer...since you're not supposed to put them in the dryer.

C'est l'amour!

The Sports Zone

While watching the Super Bowl, I was reminded again that my sons do not yet share my affection for sports. There are other things that are my interests that they do like. They're both fans of comedy in a variety of forms -- laughing at everything from the Marx Bros. to old Bill Cosby albums to Bugs Bunny cartoons to their own generations' batch of Nickelodeon and Disney shows. They both seem to share my interest in storytelling. They both like music.

However, neither one of them has much interest in sports. I've tried to get them to watch football at various times, but usually all I get is complaints that I'm hogging the good TV. The one thing that they liked about the Super Bowl was the various snacks that got laid out on our dinning room table. They didn't even care about the commercials. Well, they did like the one with the kid dressed up as Darth Vader and trying to use the Force, but that was about it.

They profess to like baseball, but that's more because they like a baseball video game. Casey did play T-Ball, but that isn't the best indicator. He almost fell asleep in the outfield after all.

I do occasionally hope that they'll decide to play more sports at some point. While I was never the greatest athlete, I did at least play sports. And, I was the worst athlete in my family. My father was an All-State basketball player, my one brother was a college basketball player and my other brother was a starter in multiple varsity sports in high school. So, there's got to be some halfway decent genes in there someplace.

They do like to go to sporting events. They've each been to multiple professional baseball games. They've been to high school and college basketball games. And, Marty has been to two Notre Dame football games. However, their affection for live sporting events is also misleading. What they really like is concession stands. My sons have never seen a concession stand that they couldn't find something that they wanted. They're happy to sit in a seat as long as they've got plenty of popcorn and lemon Italian ice.

Of course, I wasn't overly interested in sports when I was their age, I suppose. To this day, I have a deep seated hatred of the Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos because they seemed to have continually preempted The Wonderful World of Disney on NBC when I was a kid.

Still, as someone that writes about sports regularly, it would be nice if my sons were at least passingly interested. Even if it were soccer, that would at least be something. And, let me tell you, that was a hard sentence to write.